Potomac Street Irregulars to meet Feb. 12

Crime study group will focus on the shooting deaths of Jacob and Samuel Shockey in the 1920s.

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Waynesboro Record Herald - Waynesboro, PA

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Posted Feb. 2, 2013 at 9:00 AM

Posted Feb. 2, 2013 at 9:00 AM

Waynesboro, Pa.

The Potomac Street Irregulars, the crime study group of Antietam Historical Association, will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 12, in the meeting room of The Parlor House, South Potomac Shopping Center.

The meeting is open to the public and is admission-free; however, because seating is limited, reservations must be made by Sunday, Feb. 10, by calling 762-2006. All attendees must order an item from the restaurant menu.

Shooting deaths

The meeting will feature a discussion of the shooting deaths of Jacob and Samuel Shockey near Beartown, Washington Township, during the 1920s.

Samuel Shockey was convicted of the shooting death of his older brother Jacob Shockey during a confrontation along a mountain road in 1925. A love triangle was the alleged motive, and the Commonwealth held an Ohio woman purporting to be the wife of Jacob as a material witness.

Samuel Shockey was sentenced to a term of imprisonment, but he later escaped from a labor camp in eastern Pennsylvania and returned to the vicinity of his home. As a fugitive, Samuel alarmed the mountain community to such an extent that perhaps as many as 20 families fled from their Beartown homes.

In 1928, Samuel’s brother Elmer found his body in the mountain, riddled with bullets and an ax wound.

The Irregulars meet the second Tuesday of every month at some location along the route known as “Potomac” street or avenue between Waynesboro and the Potomac river. They study historical crimes that occurred in the Antietam watershed of Franklin County and Washington County.